FREDERICTON — A New Brunswick federal cabinet minister admits his frustration with “a way of life” that’s seen unemployment benefits in this province approach the $1-billion mark.

Bernard Valcourt has thumbed through the final recommendations of the Mowat Centre Employment Insurance Task Force and isn’t so sure they’d help New Brunswick. But the minister in charge of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency also concedes his vexation with the current system.

“If you lose your job because of labour market changes, you should be entitled to benefits to help you get back into the labour market. That should be the rule,” said Valcourt. “But unfortunately, in New Brunswick — where we probably have one of the highest claimant rates in Canada — we have too many people who only entered the labour market to get EI benefits. It’s become a way of life.”

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These are just some of the choice words the respected group of academics at the University of Toronto used to described the country’s $21.6-billion employment insurance system in a report issued earlier this week.

If their recommendations were introduced by Ottawa — including a common standard for employees across Canada to qualify for government payments after being laid off from a job — it would have a profound effect on New Brunswick, where it’s estimated up to one out of every three workers outside Moncton, Saint John and Fredericton claims EI every year.

People access the job insurance program differently based on where they live in 58 different economic regions. If they are in a region of higher unemployment it’s easier to access the system, benefits are higher and last longer. In regions of low unemployment it’s harder to qualify. Almost everyone — workers and employers — pay into the insurance system through premiums.

The federal program is primarily designed to help people who are laid off while they look for a new job. However, in places with seasonal industries, such as forestry and fisheries, people often count on the program to make ends meet, year in, year out.

Valcourt did an extensive tour of Atlantic Canada in the summer and he said the business community complained that it had a shortage of workers while government paid for people to sit at home, waiting for their next seasonal job to start.

“It bugs me,” he said.

“I’m amazed. I go to Richibucto and I’m told by a business they have to import 50 Romanians to work in a shop when I have hundreds and thousands of people on EI in the same place,” said Valcourt, referring to Imperial Manufacturing Group, which hired the workers from the eastern European country to fill semi-skilled manufacturing positions. “You have farmers who have to import Mexican workers to do work when we have people who could do this, but no, they’d rather do their strict number of hours and qualify for EI.”

Despite these problems, Valcourt wasn’t willing to support radical changes proposed in the report. He pointed out that some industries were deeply dependent on employment insurance to help keep workers in their regions.

“This is the tough one. We have an industry that’s seasonal – the fisheries and forest sector – and we just can’t ignore that. I’m trying to find a way of addressing that reality. And it’s not only true in rural New Brunswick but all of rural Canada.”

The Conservative government has no plans to radically change the system.

Valcourt, meanwhile, has his own opinions on how to fix the system. One of his ideas is to force any new EI claimants to have a high school degree, to avoid young people quitting school early and closing off their job prospects.

He cautioned, however, that there were political realities to consider.

“Let’s be honest,” he said. “You have the member of Parliament from Alberta who sees thousands of jobs not being filled in his province and he says, ‘Why don’t you come here, we have a lot of work?’ And then you have the Toronto member of Parliament who says, ‘Listen, my guy who loses his job in downtown Toronto or Mississauga, why does he only get so many weeks of EI when the guy in (rural Canada) gets two thirds more? This is not fair.’ So poor Minister Finley is getting a host of views, and the challenge is to find a balance that will serve the best interests of all of Canada.”